New jab could help repair heart damage and prevent future attacks

Hope for heart attack victims: A jab is being developed that could prevent a second attack or heart failure

A treatment to repair the damage done by heart attacks is being developed by scientists.

Researchers at Harvard University have pinpointed a protein that triggers the regeneration of the adult heart.

It could be used to improve the quality of life for some of the 150,000 people who suffer heart attacks each year in Britain.

An injection of the protein could prevent patients from having a
second attack and stop them developing potentially deadly heart
failure.

With the therapy also offering hope to children with some
forms of congenital heart defect, the work has been hailed as
'fascinating' by British experts.

The U.S. breakthrough centres on neuregulin 1, or NRG1, a protein vital in the development of the heart in the unborn baby.

Injected into the heart of adult mice and rats, it kick-started
the growth of new cells, the journal Cell reports. Given as a series of
injections, it helped repair the damage done by heart attacks.

The jab also stopped the animals from developing heart
failure, a potentially fatal condition in which the weakened heart
gradually loses its ability to pump blood round the body.

Many safety tests, including experiments on larger animals such as pigs, are needed before the technique is tried out in humans. But, despite this, the researchers believe it offers real hope to heart patients.

Dr Bernhard Kuhn envisages heart attack sufferers being given daily infusions of the protein over a period of weeks.

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He said: 'Based on all the information we have, this is a promising candidate.'

He added that the technique offered an alternative to treatment with stem cells - 'blank' cells thought to offer hope as a 'repair kit' for the body.

Professor Jeremy Pearson of the British Heart Foundation said: 'In the last few years the discovery of stem cells within the heart has led to efforts to encourage these cells to replicate and become new beating heart cells, to help the heart to repair itself after damage.

'Until now, adult heart cells have been widely believed to be incapable-of replication. This fascinating-study shows, remarkably, that a significant fraction of adult heart cells in mice can be made to replicate and help to repair damaged hearts.

'If the same mechanisms identified by the researchers can be shown to work in the human heart, it opens up real possibilities for new and more efficient ways to treat people with heart disease.'